These Youngsters and their Social Media

Unfortunately, I haven’t had anything really exciting/embarrassing/hilarious happen to me lately. How BORING.

 About a month ago I expressed I had writer’s block and you guys were kind enough to give me some awesome suggestions. One of the topics suggested was my opinion on teenagers and social networking sites. Let me just say, I have repeatedly said to my friends, “thank GOD we didn’t have Facebook in high school. Could you imagine??”

I remember when I first joined; I had just graduated and had to use my college email to sign up. Then they just let all the riffraff in. I kid. Kinda. MySpace was big in that time, most likely because a lot of folks didn’t acquire a student email address for lack of attending college. Anyway, it still wasn’t huge until just out of high school, thankfully. I think back to all the drama that circled around grades 9-12 and to add social networking to that is just unthinkable. Hell, I still get sucked into social networking drama and I graduated, well, it doesn’t matter how many years ago.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a Facebook stalker, and this goes for MySpace, too (when people were actually using it). So you take someone like me, and give me public facebook/myspace/twitter,etc pages and add in the emotional distress of a teenage girl, you have a mild disaster. Not to mention, the nights I would sneak on the phone after my mom went to sleep or tell her I wanted to play “Snake” on her Nokia while really sending quick text messages. I would have been all over “doing my homework” but really all up in Facebook.

I don’t have children, but eventually when or if I do, I imagine this could be a struggle. You can’t really forbid your tween to be a part of what literally everyone (including yourself) is a part of because then you just have rebellion. I probably wouldn’t mind if my kid had a profile because I would know everything that is going on at all times (trust me, I would). Even if I couldn’t, with most everyone on the planet having accounts, I’m bound to find out what I need to. Although they say, don’t look for what you don’t want to find. Whoever “they” are, are out of their mind. I want the juice!

I imagine my niece, who is 4, having a Facebook page one day and if I saw her post some of the things I used to post, I would get in my car, drive straight to Kentucky and make her watch every season of Bad Girl’s Club or worse, Love & Hip Hop Atlanta so she could see what kind of future she was being promised. Then, she probably won’t listen because she’s an annoying teenager and then I’ll just have to bring her home with me and resort to some sort of alternate plan, I need to pump the brakes, I’m getting ahead of myself.

 I say this because, I was rowdy. I was extreme. I was at times an instigator. I would be passive aggressive toward people I know were seeing my posts/pics just to stir the pot. I would rub stuff in people’s faces. I would post pics of going out drinking all the time, still considering myself classy. I was “that girl”. Mostly because I was in my late teens/early 20’s and thought I had life figured out because I had my own apartment. Obviously, I have now grown up, and although I still get targeted via social media (and even by people my age which is just a little silly), it takes a lot for me to actually engage in any of it. At this point in my life I feel like if you have something to say about me and take to social media to do it; it says more about you than it does me. I don’t lose a wink of sleep from it and most of the times just laugh about it with my friends. However, if I was in high school, it would be different. I would probably call my mom 34 times at work with an “emergency” because of course, drama at that age can’t wait and is a life or death situation, then 3-way call my best girlfriends; rehearse how I would respond, have a few emotional breakdowns, etc.

Social media can be the demise of friendships, relationships, careers- at any age. I know most people would debate that, I have had the conversation about social media and relationships and although you trust your significant other 100%, it isn’t always about that. It’s about the other people that have no regard for relationships/marriages/friendships and intentionally do things for their own entertainment or to see how far they can get. Not to mention, with the birth of Facebook, the population has drastically increased with keyboard thugs. You know the ones; the people that LOVE to talk smack virtually, but wouldn’t dare SAY anything to a person’s face. We’re all human and we all get pushed to a certain point. I would be lying if I said nothing ever bothered me on Facebook. Granted, my initial reaction to things is usually a bit irrational and once I think logically, the thought dies right there.

Do I think it’s a good thing to have tweens/teens using social media? No. But then again I don’t’ agree with a 7 year old having a cell phone, either. Call me old fashioned. I have a new respect for parents with children going through puberty and also having social networking accounts. If my kid is anything like me, and inherits my smart mouth, I’m in for a world of trouble.